It was in the eye of Montreal Canadiens’ new executive vice president of hockey operations, Jeff Gorton, that the Laval Rocket lost 4-3 in overtime on Wednesday to the Texas Stars.
Gorton was seen in a box at Place Bell for this match and saw a huge effort from the Canadiens school club.
Of the set, attention was drawn by Raphael Harvey Benard and Laurent Dauphin. Each player scored one goal and one pass in this game. They were partners in the nets of Louie Belpedio, who made it 1-1 in the first half.
Anthony Lewis then netted two midterm goals for the Stars, including one in a strong two-man game to give the Stars a 3-1 lead.
The missile did not give up. Harvey Benard accepted a beautiful pass from Corey Scheueneman in front of the net and then beat Adam Scheele with a skillful trick. Two minutes and 10 seconds left, Dauphin jumped on a rebound to score his eleventh goal of the campaign and send both teams into overtime.
Ty Delandria escaped after a long pass from Ben Gleeson and Kayden Primo stopped his trick, but in his slip into his fold, Dauphin called his guard and ended up pinch-behind the red line.
Primo was in pain after that goal and barely made it back to the locker room. The goalkeeper returned the rocket 23 balls in the loss.